AUBURN HILLS, Michigan (Ticker) -- The Detroit Pistons did not
look like they needed Jerry Stackhouse until crunch time, when
the Milwaukee Bucks made all the big shots.

Sam Cassell and Ray Allen made big baskets down the stretch and
the Bucks took advantage of the absence of Stackhouse for their
seventh straight win, a 102-98 victory over the Pistons.

Stackhouse, the NBA's leading scorer at 30.1 points per game,
was sidelined with the flu. The Pistons do not have another
consistent offensive option so they resorted to a team effort
and it almost worked.

"I can't ask for anymore from the team. I thought we did a
terrific job of competing," Pistons coach George Irvine said.

"They changed their personality a great deal without
Stackhouse," Bucks coach George Karl said. "They played real
loose and very aggressive. The players had a loose mentality
going, which is very hard to beat on the road, so I can't be
unhappy."

Dana Barros scored 22 points and Michael Curry added 17 -- both
season highs -- for Detroit, which pulled into an 89-89 tie with
just under 4 1/2 minutes to go.

"Jerry's our mainstay, so we knew somebody was going to have to
step up," Barros said. "You're always going to have injuries
but you have to be ready to overcome them and I think we did
tonight."

However, the Bucks have three offensive options and each stepped
up down the stretch. Cassell made a jumper that gave the Bucks
the lead for good and fed Allen for a 3-pointer and a 94-89 lead
with 3:16 remaining.

"Between me, Ray and Tim (Thomas), we have so many guys that can
make important baskets," Cassell said.

Cassell overlooked Glenn Robinson, who scored 10 of his 26
points in the fourth quarter. Cassell added 20, Allen 17 and
Thomas 14 as the Bucks (25-15) moved 10 games above .500 for the
first time since the end of the 1990-91 season.

"It feels good to be in first place," Robinson said. "We've
been building this team for years and now we finally got a
chance to be in first place. Hopefully, we could hold it,
hopefully we could keep improving and get better as a team."

After Cassell and Allen made their shots, the Bucks did not
score for nearly two minutes. But the Pistons missed five shots
and two free throws during that stretch, inching within 94-91 on
two free throws by Joe Smith.

"Things are not going our way," Pistons center Mikki Moore said.
"You get down to the last few minutes and we were neck and neck
and made some mistakes and gave the game away."

Cassell answered with a tough turnaround jumper from the left
baseline with 1:22 to go. Barros made a jumper and Detroit's
Chucky Atkins had a chance to tie it but missed a 3-pointer with
40 seconds left.

Thomas made a short jumper in the lane with 20 seconds to play
and Allen sank two free throws with 7.9 seconds left after Curry
hit his first 3-pointer of the season. Detroit's John Wallace
made a layup, but Robinson took a touch pass from Cassell and
went the length of the court for a dunk at the buzzer.

The Bucks shot 46 percent (42-of-91), made 15-of-20 free throws
and grabbed 41 rebounds. They were outdone in each category by
the Pistons but still found a way to win.

"We're trying to become a winning team," Cassell said. "That's
what winning teams do. This wasn't our best ballgame but it's a
win."

"I don't know why we win when we don't play good," Karl said.
"We didn't play good tonight but we beat a team that played
awfully hard and we did what we had to do."

Chucky Atkins started for Stackhouse and scored 19 points. Smith
added 15 and 12 rebounds and Ben Wallace nine and 13 for the
Pistons, who shot 51 percent (37-of-72) and made 17-of-28 free
throws but committed 15 turnovers.

"We had a chance to win and that's all you can ask for," Irvine
said. "Like I said, after most of the games in this homestand,
when we're playing a great game like that, we have to play both
really hard and at a very high level. That's when missing key
free throws and turning the ball over will hurt you."

"We played hard and I thought we played pretty well, but we got
beat by the little things," Atkins said. "We missed some free
throws and we gave up second shots that really hurt."

Atkins scored 13 points in the first quarter as Detroit bolted
to a 33-26 lead. Milwaukee cut the deficit to 50-49 at halftime
and took a 76-74 lead after three quarters.